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By Tim Larsen
Is anyone else becoming an email theologian? It happens several times a month—I receive an email from a complete stranger soliciting theological advice. He or she is perplexed about some hot-button issue of Christian thought or living, sometimes volunteering that the issue is pressing in on them for personal reasons. I don’t think I’m paranoid, but occasionally I wonder if these emails are some sort of trap.
I remember the first time I heard a British academic who wasn’t a genius. He misplayed a routine groundball of a question. He looked puzzled, then uncomfortable, then said something unintelligible. I’d heard many academics do this, but never one with a British accent. “What’s wrong with you?” I wondered. “Everyone with your accent is brilliant,” to use a Britishism.
By Lou Carlozo
What is it about Christian music that keeps its artists—and proponents—from taking a good look in the mirror and owning up work that falls far, far short on the quality scale?
I used to be an enthusiastic contributor and music critic to CCM and many other Christian music magazines, including 7 Ball, Mars Hill Review, Christian Single and Acaza.com. Yet today, my strong feeling is that the process of dishing direct, honest Christian music criticism has stagnated—and may even have gone into reverse gear.
Peter Beinart admits that he succumbed to an “intoxication with the revolutionary potential of the United States” when, as editor of the New Republic, he endorsed the U.S.’s preemptive attack on Iraq. Kenneth Pollack, whose 2002 book The Threatening Storm persuaded many to endorse the invasion of Iraq, has also issued an apology of sorts:
By James Howell
I really wish they’d stop finding old bones that allegedly belong to Jesus, or old gospels that portray a different kind of Jesus, or film clips of Jesus being brutalized. Yeah, I know: the bones were found a couple of decades ago, the gospels even longer ago, and— oh, right… the Mel Gibson film wasn’t real either.
By Rodney Clapp
When I turned on the recently released dvd of Oscar-nominated Babel, I expected that Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu would treat the themes of Genesis 11—hubris and tower-building and the confusion of languages. What I did not expect was how the film would make me ponder other biblical themes.
It’s been a pleasure to get to teach Augustine at a conservative evangelical college. The students are sharp, spiritually serious without being narrow-minded, and fun to be around. They respect Augustine to the point of reverence—I had to give them permission to disagree with him.
In one class I started discussion by asking, “Why do people get so pissed off about the question of the influence of Platonism on Augustine?” I heard an audible gasp.
Why is it so rare to see religious humor in print? That’s a question we ponder from time to time at the Christian Century. We’d like to publish more of it. Is this a Protestant deficiency?
We know Christians have a sense of humor. In my experience, Protestant pastors are generally quick to see the humor that lurks in their serious work.
By Lillian Daniel
Why do pastors write so poorly for their own church newsletters? When I scan the monthly missives that cross my desk with the daily mail, I see their front pages, saved for the pastor, wasted on a throw-away paragraph, a canned story from the Internet or a few sentences from a reference book (“Webster’s dictionary defines Lent as …”)
These are not people who are writing impaired, mind you.
The recent launch of “Christian Churches Together” will not make the list of top ten religion stories of 2007. It could, however, rank high among the year’s most significant developments.
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